GEORGE FISKE (1835-1918) Views of Yosemite, a suite of 27 photographs. Circa 1884. Albumen prints, the images measuring 7½x4¼ inches (19.1x10.8 cm.), and the reverse, the mounts 10x7 inches (25.4x17.8 cm.), all but one with Fiske's credit and number in the negative, and each with a caption in ink, on mount recto.
Provenance A California Collection
George Fiske worked as an assistant to Carleton Watkins, as well as with Eadweard Muybridge. By 1879, Fiske moved to Yosemite Valley, becoming its first year-round resident photographer. Prophetically, Ansel Adams was given a copy of a book titled In the Heart of the Sierras (by James M. Hutchings, 1888), which persuaded Adams, and by extension his family, to vacation in Yosemite National Park in 1916. Adams implored the Yosemite Park Company to safely store what remained of Fiske's negatives, but tragically they were lost in a fire in 1943. Later Adams would say "Fiske could have been revealed today, I firmly believe, as a top photographer, a top interpretive photographer. I really can't get excited at [Carleton] Watkins and [Eadweard] Muybridge--I do get excited at Fiske. I think he had the better eye." (Paul Hickman & Terence Pitts, George Fiske Yosemite Photographer, 1980)
